Nobody Wins
by rcaqua
Summary: Post LMR, Meredith has a lot to deal with. Can she and Derek ever make it back together, or are destined to be apart? Meanwhile, the other interns have problems of their own.
1. I Don't Want to Talk About It

**Nobody Wins**

Disclaimer: I own abso-freaking-lutely nothing. At all. Duh.

Notes: Anyone who visits the _Grey's Anatomy _fanfiction group over at livejournal or the _Grey's _fanfiction site (a great bunch of people over there) has probably seen this already. For those of you who haven't, this is my shot at a post-finale fic. It's been a while since I've done anything new here, so be prepared for different (and hopefully better) writing. Since is such a busy place and all, I've decided that updates will be directly proportionate to the amount of reviews I get... which means the more you review, the faster I'll update. Also, this is a sequel, of sorts to my fic _Happily Ever After_, which is over at my LJ. Feel free to head on over and check it out, and make sure you tell me if I should post it here or not. Now, onto the story...

**Chapter One**

**In Which the Heroine(s) Don't Want to Talk About It**

_Do you remember putting your hand on the stove, just to see what it really feels like? Your mom always told you not to, but you went ahead and did it anyway. The next thing you know, you're crying with your fingers in your mouth. So next time Mom's making dinner, you don't put your hand on the stove. Why? Because of fear. _

"Uh," I groaned.

The first thing I notice is my head – it hurts. Like, a lot. The second thing I notice is the rest of my body – that hurts, too. And the third thing I notice is the floor. Which, you know, is the thing I'm sleeping on.

Why I am sleeping on the floor, I don't really know. Since I've got a hangover the size of Texas, I think it's understandable that I don't feel like opening my eyes right now. Or moving at all, really. If I could, I'd stop breathing, but I tried that once in college, and it didn't turn out well.

"Finally," someone says. "It's about time you woke up."

I groan again, but this time (surprisingly) it isn't because I'm in pain. Well, not physical pain, anyway. Because that someone? Yeah, I know them. And right now, I really don't want to talk to them. Well, her. Because she's, well, a she. And I'm rambling, aren't I?

"Hi, Callie," I say without opening my eyes.

I'm hoping she'll get the message and go away. Don't get me wrong, I sort of like Callie now. She helped with Doc the dog, and with the other…_Doc_. And George is her McDreamy. So, right now, I don't really hate her or anything. But I really wish she would go somewhere else so I can curl up on my cozy piece of floor.

No such luck. The next thing I know, Callie is lifting me up by my arms, and let me just say, she sure is strong. I bet she got in a few extra rounds with the hammer and plastic bones while she was on call. Or maybe she just works out.

"Meredith," she says, "open your eyes."

She sounds really anxious, so I do.

It's really bright in the hall. Why haven't we bought curtains for the hall windows? I'll have to ask Izzie about that. She likes to decorate things. Mostly cupcakes, but still, she's definitely better than me or George.

It's amazing how one thought can trigger a memory. Or several memories. Because with one thought I suddenly remember everything that happened last night, hangover notwithstanding. God, I need a drink.

I look down at the floor, squinting slightly, and see confirmation. George, Cristina, and Alex are sprawled on the ground. If this happened at any other time, for any other reason, I'd think this was funny. Cristina has an empty bottle of vodka in one hand, and the other one is covering George's face. She's practically smothering him in his sleep. Alex, on the other hand, is propped against the wall by the bedroom door – _Izzie's _bedroom door – with another bottle of vodka between his legs. I wonder if they've left any alcohol in the house, or if I'm going to have to make and emergency visit to Joe's later.

Callie is tugging on my arm now, and she jerk her head toward the stairs.

"Come on, you have to see this."

I nod and follow her down to the kitchen in silence. As we get closer, I start hearing the sound of pots and pans clanging together, and the unmistakable noise of the coffee maker grinding beans.

"Good morning, guys," Izzie smiles brightly.

I stare. Then I close my eyes, count to ten, and hope that this is all part of some twisted nightmare. Maybe I'll wake up soon, and this entire year will be nothing but a dream. Addison won't exist, Derek won't be married, and Denny will have a heart. A nice, healthy heart, that will keep him alive and happy and perfectly able to marry Izzie so they can have tall, beautiful Barbies together.

Yeah, right. Like life would ever be that easy.

I exhale and open my eyes. Izzie is still there, floral apron, Hello Kitty underwear, and all. She is still giving us that bright, look-how-happy-I-am grin and holding out a mug of coffee like it's the Holy Grail.

"I'm sorry, Meredith," she says. "You're coffee isn't done yet. Why don't I make you something to eat while we wait for it?"

I'm too busy gaping at her to respond. She takes advantage of our momentary bout of incredulity to usher Callie and I to the table. Before we really know what is happening, we are both sitting down with a steaming plate of waffles in front of us. Callie is loosely holding her coffee in one hand, and I'm afraid it's going to spill. I open my mouth to say something, but Callie beats me to it, leaning over and hissing "What do we do?" in my ear.

I look around the kitchen. Every surface has been cleaned and polished until it looks better than it did when it was new (and I would now). If there's a pastry or breakfast food that isn't lined up on the counter, Izzie's probably making it right now. I don't even know the names of half the foods in this kitchen right now. Even the table looks different. There's a tablecloth on it, one of the nice, white linen ones from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. My God, she's even put a vase of flowers in front of the window.

If my mother were here to see this, she'd go after Izzie with a scalpel. Or she'd think Izzie is her intern/cousin/sister-in-law or whatever, but you get the idea.

"She bakes when she's depressed. Or angry. Or happy. It's her coping mechanism. Just go with it."

Callie doesn't look convinced, and I know we should be trying to help Izzie come out of her denial, but, you know what? Izzie is sad. Her fiancé just died after she stole a heart so he would live, effectively ending her medical career. If she wants to bake, she can bake. Who are we to tell her how to grieve? At least she didn't sleep with a McMarried man.

Then I spot the pink-and-white frosted layer cake, complete with sugar swirls, next to the fridge.

She's going to snap and kill us all.

"I'm telling you, it's not natural. There's only so much sugar one person can take," George insists.

We're in the locker room. Everyone has their scrubs on, and now we're waiting for Bailey. Actually, we're talking about Izzie while pretending to wait for Bailey.

"_She_ isn't eating all that stuff she's baking," Alex points out.

"Yeah, maybe she'll decide to donate it to someone," I say.

"Or shove it down our throats with a shovel," Cristina says.

I shoot her a look.

"What?" she asks. "I'd say she'd feed it to us through an IV drip, but she won't come back to the hospital."

I shake my head, but some part of me is relieved. Everything is different now. Burke was shot, Denny's dead, Izzie quit, and I slept with McDreamy. But somehow, Cristina hasn't changed.

That's not true. She won't talk about it, but there's something different about her, I can tell. But it's almost like she refuses to change. Like she doesn't want to be anything besides arrogant, sarcastic, Cristina. I don't know why, but I'm going to find out. Later. I'll find out later, because right now I have to tune back into this conversation before someone mentions something important…Like asking me where I was when Izzie was with Denny.

"So where were you?" Alex repeats, looking at me aggressively.

I blink. How did we get to this?

"What was so important that you bailed on Izzie when she needed you?"

"Back off, Evil Spawn," Cristina snaps. "She was there before you were. How were we supposed to know he was going to die?"

Alex says something to her, and soon they're just trading insults. I tune them out again. It's becoming so easy to do that. I never used to, you know. A while ago, I actually paid attention when my friends were talking. I would have tried to stop the argument. But I won't. They're both hurting, and when Alex and Cristina are in pain, they yell. It's what they do, just like Izzie bakes, George stops talking, and I…sleep with inappropriate men.

I think I might be in denial. I should feel something _more_. I should be freaking out. There should be tears, and screaming, and remorse. Right now, I don't feel anything at all. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that scares me. But the fear is dull, just like the pain is.

It's like there's this fog around me. Not just around me, really, but everywhere. It's the kind of fog that lingers over the Sound around dawn, or so. It's thick, and heavy, and it makes you feel like you're in a vacuum. Derek and I once went on the 4 am ferry just so we could be in the thick of that fog. It felt like we were the only people in the world – even more than when we were at the trailer. He had been the only person I could see, hear, feel, touch…

But that's in the past. He has a wife. A wife who is kind, caring, and about to be in a lot of pain. I can't be the mistress. Because Mark was wrong, fate never favors the dirty mistresses.

I hear Alex say something about "Burke's crackwhore". Cristina says something about a "syphilis factory". They sound so far away. And they're blurry. Why are they blurry?

I know I should be worried, but I can't bring myself to feel it. They look just like they would have if they had been on the deck of that ferry boat with me and Derek. Maybe they wouldn't be wearing their scrubs, but it's so easy to imagine them there.

Derek and I would be standing in the prow. He'd have his arms around me, and we would be looking at the water. It'd be hard to see anything, but that wouldn't matter. He'd move his face to my hair, like he did last night, and take a moment to inhale the scent of my shampoo – lavender, as always. Then he'd whisper something in my ear ("I love you, Meredith." "You still smell like lavender." "Addison, who?"), and I'd smile. Alex and Cristina would be sitting on one of the wood benches behind us, arguing, of course, and I'd turn around to laugh at them. George would be sitting a little bit away from them, and he'd catch my eye for a second so we could execute a simultaneous eye roll – exactly the sort of thing best-friends-who- never-ever-slept-together-and-never-will-because-Derek-doesn't-have a-wife would do. Izzie would be in the cabin, because she doesn't want the basket of cupcakes she made to get wet. She'll come out anyway, though, so we can have breakfast together. Of course, she'll have brought some milk and Muesli for Derek to eat.

"Meredith?"

"Meredith!"

"Grey! Grey, are you listening to me?"

"Meredith, wake up."

I open my eyes. Everyone is staring at me. Bailey's here. She's looking at me with the strangest expression in her eyes. Pity? Sadness? Anger? Regret? Worry? I don't know which one it is. Maybe it's none of them; maybe it's all of them.

"I wasn't asleep," I tell them.

Alex snorts, Cristina rolls her eyes, and Bailey purses her lips. Some part of me notices that George looks concerned, but I turn away from him and forget all about it. Surprisingly, Bailey doesn't say anything about my…daydream, which you know she normally would have.

"Well, whatever it is that you were doing, I told you to get down to the pit. Major pile-up on the freeway. So go!" she barked.

I leave as she starts telling everyone else where to go. I've barely made it to the ER, when George shows up.

"Bailey sent me down here, too," he says. "Cristina gets to scrub in with Dr. Haan, and Alex is stuck with, uhm, Satan."

I nod. He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. It's like he's searching for something, but can't find it.

"Just say it," I tell him.

"Uh, what?" he says, flustered.

I'm calm. Well, I'm numb, but it all amounts to the same thing, really.

"Whatever it is you're thinking," I reply. "I can tell you want to say something to me, and I don't want you giving me that look all day, so whatever it is you want to say, go ahead."

He hesitates, and at first I think he won't say anything, but then,

"It's just, you've been acting strange. I mean, it's okay, you know, to feel bad about Denny dying, he was a great guy, but – well, I think it's something else. It just- It feels like you're having some kind of problems." He said.

I felt a sudden rush of affection for George. It was dimmer than what it should have been, but was more than enough to make me smile. He smiled back, and we stood like that for a beat. Then they started wheeling in the car crash victims.

"Female, 42, severe burns to the chest and abdomen," the paramedic says.

"Mine," I say immediately.

George shoots me another look before rushing off to another patient. I suppose I sound a little overenthusiastic to grab a patient that is clearly not going to result in a surgery, but that's what I'm going for. I can't risk having a patient that could require a neuro consult. Sure, there are other neurologists in the hospital – a whole department of them, in fact – but it seems like there is only ever one neurologist on call when what I want most is to avoid him.

I grab the chart from the paramedic and look over it.

"Hello, Mrs. Collins," I say, giving her my best smile. "It says here that you have third degree burns on your chest and abdomen. I'm going to examine your wounds now. Do you mind telling me how that happened?"

She starts talking as I tell a nurse to put her on 150 cc of lactated ringer's solution over the next eight hours. The paramedics had already cleaned the wounds, so all that is left for me to do is give her a routine examination, fill out the rest of her chart, and tell a nurse to wrap the wounds in an hour, once the solution had time to take effect.

"The car, it exploded," she says.

"Uh huh," I nod absently, still filling out her chart.

"I mean, that's not supposed to happen in real life. You only hear about that kind of thing on TV, or in those horrible movies guys love to watch. But the car exploded. The car exploded, and people died, and were screaming, and it's all my fault."

Mrs. Collin trails off. I look up and see the tears running down her face.

"No, no, no, Mrs. Collins," I say, trying to soothe her. The accident wasn't your fault."

She ignores me.

"I rammed into the car in front of me," she continues. "I knew I was supposed to stop, but I couldn't. I just couldn't. I couldn't hit the brake. My foot wouldn't move. And I hit the other car. It spun, and it hit another car, and I hit the one in front of it. And then that first car exploded. It- It blew up."

I'm quiet for a moment. What can I say to that? She started a four-car pileup and killed at least two people, possibly more.

"There were kids in that car. It had one of those little plastic things you stick to the window to keep the sun out of the baby's eyes. And I could see them, when I was driving behind them. There were two girls in the back seat. One of them had pigtails. I killed a family. I killed a whole family. An entire family is dead and it's all my fault."

She's sobbing now. I want to reach out a hand and comfort her, but the parts of her that aren't burned still look pretty raw, and besides, I don't think I'd be very helpful. With my luck, I'll probably make her feel worse.

"They're dead. It's all my fault. It's all my fault. It's all my fault."

I look away. It feels like I'm intruding now. A nurse is passing by, and I signal to her.

"Arrange a psych consult for Mrs. Collins," I tell her in an undertone.

She nods and walks off.

Mrs. Collins is still crying, muttering variations of "It's my fault." "Couldn't stop." and "They're dead." It's when she says "couldn't stop. I couldn't stop," again that I realize something.

Her foot wouldn't move. She knew she had to stop, and she tried to move her foot, but it wouldn't. Without thinking, I let out a groan. That means one thing.

Neuro consult.

Is it wrong that, just in this moment, I'm more worried about calling a neurologist than I am about the patient?


	2. Did I Do That?

Notes: Here'sthe next chapter. You know the drill. Read. Click that little button at the bottom of the page. Write something. Anything.

* * *

**Chapter Two**

**In Which the Heroine Does a Very Bad Thing**

"Paging Dr. Williams, paging Dr. Williams," rings through the hospital.

It's been exactly three minutes and thirty-_one_, _two_,_ three_, seconds since I had Debbie page Derek. Dr. Shepherd. It's been three minutes and thirty-something seconds since I had Debbie page _Dr. Shepherd. _I know. I've been staring at the clock in the hall ever since.

Mrs. Collins has been admitted as a patient (room 2132), and she's in there now. She's pretending to be asleep right now, but I know better. Right now, she is lying flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling, and trying not to cry. It isn't working.

Some part of me (the part that is friends with Alex) wants to go in there and tell her to shut up. The accident wasn't her freaking fault. She (probably) has a medical condition. So stop whining and get over it. At least she has a loving husband who is on his way here, and two kids who are already down in the gift shop buying Hallmark cards and balloons. That's more than I'll ever have. All I've got is a family of scary, damaged interns, a boyfriend who deserves someone much better than me, and a married ex-boyfriend who I just had dirty exam room sex with. During the _prom_. Nothing says "I'm a filthy whore," better than dirty exam room sex during the prom. Unless there's syphilis, a constant erection, or people who don't wash their hands involved, but I'm pretty sure those were isolated cases.

The point is, I feel grumpy. I also feel worried. The thing is, for a slutty ex/current mistress who is about to face the incredibly McDreamy, married attending she's being all mistressy with for the first time since the Dirty Exam Room Sex (yes, it does deserve capital letters now), I should feel a lot grumpier and more worried than I do. But I don't.

Weird, huh?

It's been four minutes now. What's taking him so long? I can't figure it out. I'm afraid to see him, but I can't wait for him to show up. It's like the tequila permanently messed up my brain, which would be bad. And not just for the obvious reasons, like paralysis and brain damage, but because that would mean I'd need Dr. Shepherd (see, I can be professional) in to examine me, which would lead to naughty thoughts. I really can't play doctor with him (again). He's married, and I have Finn, and Finn has plans, and I really don't think Mrs. Collins would like it if we pulled our scrubs off and started having sex against the wall of her room.

See? Dirty thoughts. Even thinking about having dirty thoughts about him makes me have dirty thoughts. And, on top of that, just thinking about him makes me ramble. I'm rambling in my own head because of him.

"Dr. Grey?"

I gasp. I nearly fall over, but luckily the wall is behind me.

"Um," I say intelligently. "Dr. Shepherd."

He's looking at me. Why is he looking at me like that? It isn't right. This isn't even one of his usual looks. It's new. It's the new look-at-me-being-really-McDreamy-while-looking-at-you-look. He looks…amused. Well, not just amused. He looks amused, confident, and downright horny. He also looks…happy. Happier than he's been in a while. He's smiling and everything.

It's probably because he can put about four different emotions into a _look_. Or maybe it is because one look from him can have me obsessing about it for…twenty-one seconds.

Ass.

"Dr. Grey?" he repeats. "Would you like to enter the patient's room?"

His eyes crinkle. Even when it's not his McDreamy smile, his eyes crinkle. While I tell him Mrs. Collins's information and medical history, the only thing I can think of is him. He isn't giving me his most dazzling smile. That's the one that makes me want to jump him in an elevator (or cry, usually both). It's not his Drunk Derek smile, either. That one makes him seem boyish and adorable (and also results in crying and/or dirty thoughts). I have a whole index of his smiles, painstakingly filed away in my memory, but this one fits none of them. I still like it.

He's grinning. His eyes are crinkled at the corner, a few teeth are showing, his hair is falling into his face, and he's _grinning. _It's an I'm-absolutely-perfect-and-you're-insane-but-I-still-think-you're-perfect-too grin that he really shouldn't be giving me.

_Remember the McMarriage_.

I can't be the whore. I won't be. I don't want to break up a marriage. Most of all, I don't want a man who didn't choose me.

Maybe if I keep telling myself that, it'll be true.

Der- _Dr. Shepherd_ tells me to run some labs, and then take Mrs. Collins down for a CT scan and an MRI. I do, but the whole way I'm still thinking of him. Why?

It isn't fair, or right, or honorable, or any of those things I am supposed to be. So what's wrong with me? I have Finn. Finn, who is scary and damaged, and likes me, and has plans, and is…_Finn_. Which isn't McDreamy.

Suddenly I feel like crying.

I go a whole day without feeling anything. I went the whole day without caring. But the second he walks in the room, I melt. I literally freaking melt. The only thing I can think about is him. How is this fair? All it took was a look to send me from my throne as reigning Ice Queen to the land of Emotional Rollercoasters. It isn't right. He shouldn't be allowed to do that. He shouldn't make me want more Dirty Exam Room Sex. But he does, and I can't do a thing about it.

The tests are done, and I page Dr. Shepherd again after escorting Mrs. Collins back to her room. I hold the results out to him, and he gestures to me to follow him to another room. Generally, a doctor wants a chance to look over the results in private so they can figure out the best way to break the news. We find an empty room and he flips open the results.

He reads them silently first, but I can see the lines in his forehead appear as he frowns. Eventually, I gather up all of my courage and ask,

"What is it?"

He looks up.

"Syphilis," he replies. "She has third-stage syphilis and what looks to be an aortic aneurysm."

"But that doesn't explain her loss of muscle-control on the highway," I object.

He looks thoughtful.

"It could," he corrects me. "An aortic aneurysm can compress the nerves and numb the leg."

"But," I prompt.

He looks at me so long that I have to turn away. There is something unsettling about him right now. He's too…everything. He's too McDreamy. He makes me feel like he could swallow me whole. And if I let him, I think I would like it.

_Like I said, fear. _

"I don't think that's the case here. She said she couldn't stop. Not that her leg was numb, not that she couldn't feel her leg, but that she _couldn't stop_." he tells me.

"Don't you think that's stretching it a little?" I feel compelled to ask. "She could easily have meant that she couldn't feel her leg."

"I know, but," and now he's looking at me, and I'm drowning, hoping to never stop. "I can't help but feel there's something more."

_You are the only thing I want to feel_, I want to say.

Instead, I drag my eyes away from his and mutter, "Yeah."

He puts the CT scans up to the light and examines them. Nothing is out of the ordinary.

"Look for any other possible causes for her loss of muscle control," he tells me.

I nod, grab the results, and head for the door. My hand is on the handle when his voice stops me.

"How is Dr. Stevens?" he asks.

I freeze. _Izzie_. Prom. Dirty Exam Room Sex.

When I finally reply, my voice is low and cold. I can't let him ask any more questions about her. Izzie and Denny has too much to do with us.

"She's fine. She's busy baking things," I say.

He nods, not seeming all that perturbed at my low and cold tone. Then again, my version of "low and cold" with him isn't measuring up to what it should be today.

His voice grows softer. There's something different now. Something that makes me instinctively identify it as "Derek" instead of "Dr. Shepherd".

"And you? How are you doing?"

"I," I say, and this time I know that I've finally managed to make myself sound as icy and distant as possible, "am perfectly alright."

He gets up from the hospital bed he was perched on and walks over to me. I should move, I know I should. The door is right in front of me. One flimsy inch of wood is the only thing separating me from safety. I could be outside right now, instead of watching Dr. Shepherd get closer to me, with that same unsettling look in his eye.

"Meredith, about last night – ," he begins, but I cut him off.

"No, Dr. Shepherd, there wasn't any "last night"," I tell him. "Nothing happened between us. We are two professionals who are going to maintain an appropriate relationship. That's all."

He doesn't move away from me. In fact, he actually moves closer. I'm getting goosebumps. He's so close that I feel like trembling, but I stop myself just in time. I can't let him know the affect he has on me. It would only encourage him.

His hand is on my arm now, stopping me from leaving. The other one quickly cups the side of my face. I can feel his thumb stroking small circles on my cheek, and have to fight to keep my eyes from closing. Even so, I feel a smile threatening to work its way across my face, and quickly suppress it.

Apparently, I'm not quick enough, because I see something that looks suspiciously like triumph flash in his eyes, and his lips curl into another grin. This one is devastating. It makes my knees buckle (just a bit) and I have to lean back against the door to stop from sliding to the ground.

"You don't believe that," he says.

"I don't believe that," I agree in a whisper.

"So why are you fighting this?" he asks.

He's so close that I couldn't move if I wanted to. He is just completely _here_. All sinful indigo eyes and gently curving lips and smooth, taut skin and perfect, long-fingered hands that can make me wild without ever removing a piece of clothing.

I don't know who kisses who first, but the next thing I know, my hands are in his hair and his lips are on mine. The doorknob is pressing into my thigh, but I don't care, because_ I'm kissing him again_. His hand moves from my arm to my waist, and I am pulling him closer to me, as close as possible. It doesn't feel like enough. I don't want this to end. It feels too good. His eyes are even darker than before, and they practically bore holes in me as we continue.

My leg shifts on the handle and the door starts to open. The spell is broken.

He backs away slightly, and so do I, effectively shutting the door again. I look at him, and for the second time since I've seen him today, I find tears are in my eyes.

"Because," I answer, "I won't be your dirty mistress. And because we aren't professionals when we're together – but we should be."

I grab the folder from the floor and hurry out of the room before he can say anything that will make me turn around and kiss him again. The door is still open, and when I look back, I see him standing there.

He looks McDreamier than ever, and my heart breaks into another piece.

_Derek._


	3. Getting to the Bottom of It

Notes: Thank you all for the reviews! I hope you like this chapter just as much (or even more). Remember, reviewing inspires posting...

**Chapter Three**

**Where the Heroine Yells**

For the rest of the day, I am in a daze. I know I am, I can tell, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to tell everyone, which I can't, because they'd probably call me crazy (as opposed to just thinking it) and ship me off to psych. And, really, I can't handle that, because I need surgery. Sure, I know you don't think it's a good idea to put me an OR, with the being dazed an all, but trust me, I work my best when I have emotional issues. Well, that's not exactly true, but I work really well when my emotions are screwed up, which is basically all the time, anyway, so you can clearly see that I can practice good medicine when I feel like going home and crying.

I mean, I'm Meredith Grey, and while I might not admit it that often (denial can be an extremely comforting friend) I am Ellis Grey's daughter. And my mother? She was the queen of repression, at least until she got into an OR. The second she got into an OR, it's like it all disappeared, and the only thing she had to do was cut. Simple. Scalpel, meet Body. And I'm like that, too, even the Chief has seen it.

So why doesn't Dr. Bailey?

She took one look at me (I was in an empty patient room again – one far, far away from where Derek Shepherd is) and said, "No OR time, Grey."

I gaped at her, and still am, but all she says is, "No OR time, I'm serious. You look like hell, Grey, I'm not letting you into an OR."

"But, what about Dr. Shepherd's surgery?" I ask. "I'm supposed to scrub in on that."

Which isn't technically true. He hasn't asked me to, or anything, but it's kind of accepted that I would scrub in on his surgery. After all, I'm the intern on this case. I'm the one doing the research, checking on the patient, kissing my McMarried boss…Okay, maybe those aren't the examples I should use when trying to convince Dr. Bailey.

She gives me a look. It's one of those looks that is totally unique to her. It's like her Nazi Death Glare, or something. Seriously, she could have worked for Hitler. I bet she would've had loads of fun torturing and murdering people. Or maybe she just bottles it all up for when she's at the hospital. Who knows? But back to my impending crisis.

Eventually she snorts and goes back to giving me her normal (read: only mildly intimidating) look.

"You can scrub in on Shepherd's surgery," she allows. "But whatever it is you're doing needs to stop." On my look, (ha! I can give looks, too. With all the Meredith-directed looks/glares/longing glances/McDreamy eyes there've been today, I almost forgot how to), she elaborates. "Like I said, you look like hell. You came in looking bad enough, and now you look even worse. Now I know all of you have some hefty stuff to be dealing with right now, but when my interns start looking like they should be patients, I draw the line."

"I don't look like a patient!" I protest.

A snort. That is her response. I just got snorted at.

"Grey, I have been a doctor for how long? _Seventeen years._ Seventeen years, I have been a doctor, and that means I have had many, many, _many_ ass-kissing interns. Now, I may not like you, or be nice to you, but I expect my interns to not embarrass me, and when the Chief of Surgery is asking me if it isn't a good idea to get the lot of you in for psych evaluations, I know something in that plan is going wrong. So until you stop looking like the poster child for sick interns, I'm keeping you away from the OR, got it?"

I nod. Really, what else can I do? It's _Bailey_, the same person who splattered someone's half-digested food all over me the last time I didn't do as she said.

"And, Meredith," she says. I look up, prepared for the worst. "Tell Stevens to get her ass back here as soon as possible."

Seriously? Seriously! She thinks Izzie can just waltz back in here? After nearly killing Denny in an _illegal_ (as in, jail time with Bertha and Hildi) attempt to save his life? After nearly killing _us_ with an overflow of baked goods? She thinks Izzie's just going to get over that, and that the Chief will?

"Yes, I really do," Bailey says. She's raising an eyebrow at me, but she's smiling.

What is she- I just said that? I seriously just said that out loud?

"You seriously said that out loud," she agrees. "And if all those, uh, "baked goods" worry you so much, bring them in. Lord only knows we haven't had time for breakfast in my house since the baby was born."

"Uh, yeah," I say.

Bailey leaves for a surgery, and I am left to stare after her with my mouth open.

I sit like that for at least a minute before I get back to work. Mrs. Collins doesn't have a particularly interesting patient history. She had her tonsils removed when she was twelve (East Mercy), broke her leg when she was 15 (Mercy West), fractured her wrist and collarbone (Mercy West, again), and came in last year for an appendectomy. Still, I'm a surgeon (or an intern, anyway) so I should do the right thing and ask her questions about her medical history.

She's sitting up when I get to her room. Her husband has pulled a chair up to the side of the bed so they can talk, and her daughter is sitting on the edge of the bed, swinging her feet. From what I've heard, she hasn't mentioned the accident (or her role in it, anyway) to them.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Collins," I smile brightly. "Where's your son?"

"Oh, he's off buying snacks in the cafeteria," she laughs. "He's always eating, you know. He never seems to "fill up"."

"Teenage boys," I agree, still smiling.

Her husband laughs, too, and her daughter rolls her eyes, but when I catch Mrs. Collins's eye, something passes between us. _I know you're hiding something_, it says. That's alright, though, because we all hide things, and I, better than most people, can figure out people's dirty little secrets.

_Maybe that's because you have so many_, a little voice whispers in my head.

I ignore it, and turn my attention back to the patient.

"So, Mrs. Collins, I have to ask you a few questions," I explain. "It's nothing major, don't worry. We just need to get to the bottom of what's causing your problem."

"Okay," she agrees readily enough, but the change is palpable. She doesn't want to talk about this.

"Well, it says here on your chart that you were admitted here last year for an appendectomy," I begin. "Did you know if you had syphilis before that?"

Mrs. Collins pales so fast that I almost call for a blood transfusion.

"No," she says. "No, I didn't have syphilis before that."

"Are you sure?" I press, "Because if the syphilis was in an early enough stage, you could have had it for days before it was advanced enough to show up in a lab result."

"I'm sure," she says.

I look around the room. Her husband is shooting her some very worried glances. Of course. That must be why she doesn't want to talk about this. She must have gotten the syphilis from someone else, and passed it onto him.

Unbidden, Addison's face flashes in my mind. I wonder what would have happened if Mark gave her syphilis. Derek would have found out sooner, then, but that means he wouldn't have come to Seattle. And while part of me cringes away from the thought of never meeting Dr. McDreamy, another part wishes it was true.

I turn my attention to the patient again.

"Do you know when you contracted the syphilis?" I ask.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice her daughter slip off the bed and out the door. Interesting.

"Yes," she says. "It was after." Softer, almost to soft to hear, she repeats, "It was after."

She isn't looking at me as she says it, but past me, to something I can't see. I turn around and spot her husband, who is studiously avoiding eye contact with anyone.

My eyes narrow, and I make a decision.

"That's all for now, Mrs. Collins," I tell her. She looks relieved. "Mr. Collins, can I speak with you in the hall?"

His head snaps up. He looks downright terrified, which would be funny under any other circumstances, since he is a six foot tall, imposing man, and I'm, well…not. I keep smiling at him, and he finally nods and gets off the bed. He follows me out of the room, but not before giving his wife another look – this one is very, very apologetic.

Once we're in the hall, I face him.

"Mr. Collins, do you know how you're wife got syphilis?" I ask.

He doesn't meet my eye.

"Yes."

I wait.

"While she was here to get her appendix out, I…Well, I'm a man," he tells me. His voice is pleading, and when he looks up at me, I can tell he is begging me to understand. "The nurse – She was…wow, she was something. Alice was in bed for the week, and, well…"

He trails off, but I get the gist of it. A year ago. The syphilis outbreak in the hospital started then, and so were Der-. No, I can't think about that right now, I'm working.

"So what you're telling me is you had an affair with a nurse while your wife was undergoing surgery?" I ask. I don't need to watch him wince to know my voice is harsh.

"Yes, but, it was just so hard. The kids were fighting, and Alice was never awake, and she was _there_," Mr. Collins tries to explain.

I cut him off.

"Did you tell her?" I interrupt him. "Did the nurse even know you were married, or was she just some random girl you screwed for the hell of it? And your poor wife…you know, you gave her that syphilis. The syphilis that caused a serious aortic aneurysm to develop. The syphilis that caused a freaking car accident! People died because, what was it? Oh yeah, because "you're a _man_"."

He opens his mouth to defend himself, but I don't let him. My voice is rising. Some part of me knows that other people can here this, but I don't care.

"Seriously? That's it? That's your defense? How pathetic is that? How would you like it if your wife went and had sex with some person off the street because she's a woman? How would you feel if your kids _died_ because someone had to go be a man?"

After that, everything is kind of hazy. All I remember is shouting more things at Mr. Collins, who tried to say things back, but got cut off by me shouting some more. Then I feel someone's arms tightening around my waist, and I am being lifted off my feet. Someone carries me backward, and I know who it is by the tightening in my stomach and the faint, clean smell of his soap and trees that lingers underneath the usual hospital smells – blood and cleaning solution.

"Put me down," I grind out.

He doesn't. His arms tighten around me, and my stomach gives another lurch. His breath tickles the inside of my ear as he whispers, "Dr. Grey, you need to calm down."

"No," I say stubbornly.

He chuckles at that. I still feel angry, but it's ebbing away, even as I try to keep the feeling. Instead, it's being replaced by an entirely different type of feeling. The kind that's making my heart start beating faster.

I hate myself for this. I hate that I'm leaning into him, trying to get as close as possible, even while I'm supposed to be married. I hate that I'm turning into a whore for him. And I hate that I'm so numb that I don't really mind.

"Mr. Collins," Derek says – because he is Derek and not Dr. Shepherd, and I will never be able to think he isn't – "Dr. Grey here is finished."

One of his hands claps over my mouth before I can say anything to that.

"She was out of line for speaking to you that way, and you have her sincerest apologies."

I curse at that. A lot. And occasionally in French or Spanish (one of the good things I learned from my nannies). Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on which way you look at it) Derek's hand is still covering my mouth, so the only thing anyone can hear is a bunch of muffled grunting.

Derek says a bunch of other things to Mr. Collins, but I don't really pay attention, because suddenly I see something out of the corner of my eye. Mrs. Collins is sitting up in bed, and she's looking right at us through the window in her door.

She heard everything, I realize.

She looks at me for a moment, and then she nods. _Thank you. _

I nod back. _You're welcome._

Derek is finished talking, and Mr. Collins doesn't look noticeably angry. Now, maybe that was because Derek was just being very persuasive, but I can't help thinking that he just doesn't care. It's like he knows that he was horrible, but he's reached the point where he doesn't care. And, really, haven't we all been like that before? Haven't we all gotten to the point where we are so afraid of what we will do next, that we just give up?

I suppose I should pity Mr. Collins, or at least feel some empathy with him, but I can't. I just can't. I think of Mrs. Collins crying because she couldn't stop, and of the pigtailed girl and her sister in the van, and I can't feel anything but anger towards him.

I guess that makes me a bad person, but I've already done and been so many things, that one more check against me won't really matter much.

Mr. Collins looks through the door at his wife, who is now staring at him. Without a word, a gesture, anything for the man she obviously loves, she turns her head away from him. He stares at her for another second, and then he, too, leaves. Halfway down the hall, he turns back, and looks at me.

"Tell her that the kids will be back tomorrow," he says.

I nod, and he leaves. As soon as he is gone, Derek puts me down, turns me around, and says, "Well, Dr. Grey, what do you have to say for yourself?"

I glare at him. I know I'm veering into dangerous territory ("You're my boss." "I'm your boss's boss."), but I can't seem to care. This entire hospital knows our history. They know that things can never be "just business" between us. So if I'm having a bad day because of my ex-something, there had better not be any complaints.

I can feel Bailey chopping me into tiny pieces even as I say,

"He was a cheating ass."

Derek chuckles again, and I find myself staring at him. His eyes are crinkled again. I love it when they do that. Maybe it's because it means he's happy, or maybe because it's for more selfish reasons, like because it means his eyes will sparkle and he'll smile and say things that make me just a little more in love with him.

"You know, I could take you off of this case for that little display," he says. "Some people might even say I _should_."

"But you won't," I say. It isn't a question.

"I won't," he agrees.

"You should. If –," I never got a chance to finish.

"I'm keeping you on this case because you are obviously working hard on it," he tells me. "So you have no other reason to keep me on this case," I say.

"Of course not."

It's a lie, and we both know it. Before I can say anything else, I see Bailey coming down the hall. It definitely isn't a good idea to be seen talking (if that's what she would call it – I'm sure a few other words will come to mind) to Derek for too long in front of her.

"I have a patient to get back to," I say. "And so do you."

He nods. "I booked an OR for tomorrow morning to remove the aneurysm."

"Okay." I linger. I don't want to leave him just yet.

He nods again and turns to go. Before he does, he leans down and whispers in my ear, "And Meredith, you aren't my dirty mistress. I signed the papers this morning."


	4. Uncomfortable Conversations

Notes: Thanks for all the reviews (and cough keep em coming cough)! Here's the next chapter...

**Chapter Four**

**In Which the Heroine Has a Very Uncomfortable Conversation**

"What are you -,"

I cut Cristina off and sit at the foot of Burke's hospital bed. He's looking at me like he wants me to leave, but is too polite to say anything. Cristina doesn't have that problem.

"Get out," she says.

"No."

She spits out her coffee. Thankfully, it lands in the cup.

"Meredith, we have exactly nineteen minutes left of lunch before I have to go back to Dr. Bitch. I do not have time for you. Go eat with George, or something."

"I slept with McDreamy and he just told me he left Addison," I say.

She puts her fork down.

"Okay, so, lunch, then?"

"Yeah."

She turns to Burke, about to tell him something, but he cuts her off.

"Go. Please, go. Talk about this somewhere that isn't here," he says.

She looks amused.

"Can't take the icky sex talk?" she smirks. "I thought you're a surgeon."

"Is it wrong that I don't want to hear about my friend and colleague having sex?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

How he can manage to look arrogant and superior from a hospital bed I will probably never know. Sadly, I actually like him, when I should hate him, because it isn't fair that anyone can pull that off.

"Yes," she answers, but she smiles.

I roll my eyes at both of them, but make sure to hide my own smile. It's still sort of weird to see them together, even though they've been a couple for almost a year now. Well, _officially_ been a couple, as opposed to the "casual" sex they were involved in before. I guess it's because they're them, you know. Cristina and Burke, the least emotional (publicly, anyway) people in the hospital. So even though everyone knows about them, there is a strict "no comment" policy in effect. So I can't smile at them being all dysfunctional couple-y. Which brings us back to me, and my not-married-anymore ex-boyfriend.

"Come on," Cristina tells me, grabbing her salad and water bottle from Burke's tray (where the cafeteria is involved, salad or a sandwich is always the way to go).

We head downstairs to the cafeteria and spot George, Callie, and strangely, Alex, sitting together at a table. Well, maybe "together" isn't the right word for it, since George and Callie are sitting together, but Alex is eating like there's no tomorrow on the other side.

We sit down in the chairs between them, and George hands me a muffin, pointedly eyeing the place where my tray should be. But, seriously, he expects me to eat when Derek just announced he left his wife? Okay, so he doesn't know yet. He should still know that _something_ is up.

"So you slept with McDreamy," Cristina says without preamble.

I cringe. Could she have been any blunter? Well, yeah, actually, she can, since this is Cristina we're talking about, but still.

George chokes on his sandwich, and Callie calmly thumps him on the back until he can breathe again.

"Thanks," he tells Callie, before rounding on me. "You slept with Dr. Shepherd?"

"You already know the answer to that," I say.

"When? Where? How?" he sputters.

I really don't want to answer that. Especially the "how" part of it. But even Alex has looked up and is waiting for my answer, which means there is no way I can get out of it.

"Last night, at the prom, and you know how," I reply quickly.

"At the prom?" is probably repeated about six times between the three of them. I say "three" because Callie already…well, Callie knows, and we'll leave it at that.

"Geez, why don't you just wear a sign?" Alex asks. " "Pet me, I'm a whore.""

"Shut up," I snap. Cristina throws a tomato at him, but that might just be because she doesn't like raw tomatoes.

She shakes her head at me.

"Only in the miserable train wreck you call your life could something like this happen," she tells me.

"Thanks," I say.

"What are you going to do?" George asks me.

I hesitate. Cristina pins me with a shrewd look.

"Are you going to take him back?" she asks, ignoring everyone else's reactions.

We, and just about everyone else at this hospital, know that I'm still in love with him, and it seems like he still loves me, but is that enough? He's never even said "I love you", not to me, anyway. He chose Addison. I offered him everything I could, and he still chose Addison, the wife he lied to me about.

What I want, more than anything, is for the two of us to have a fairy tale ending. You know, a riding off into the sunset, eternal devotion, happily ever after sort of deal. But the chances of that happening to me are about negative 7. Seriously. Relationships are supposed to be built on trust (according to Oprah, anyway), and Derek and I – we have none. I cheated on my boyfriend, and he lied to me and cheated on his wife. There really is no getting around that. I can't have happily ever after with him, I know, but he makes me…he makes me want too much. There never is enough with him, and…

_Fear can be a powerful motivator, but sometimes, there are other feelings that can balance it out._

"I don't know," I say softly.

"What do you mean by "take him back"? He's married," George says.

"No, he's not," I reply.

"Not anymore," Cristina agrees.

George looks between the two of us and finally gets it.

"He signed the papers, then?"

"Yeah."

"We all know you're gonna end up together eventually," Alex tells me, looking unusually serious. "Why are you even bothering to pretend you won't?"

"It's not that easy," I try to explain. "He- We- There's no trust." I finally say.

Alex rolls his eyes.

"That's the best you've got? Seriously?" he asks.

Cristina and George are surprisingly silent, and I can tell they think he has a point. I sort of think he has a point, too, but he's trying to make it simpler than it is, and do I really want to take relationship advice from Alex?

I am about to say something, but he continues before I can.

"Yeah, yeah, I get that he was an ass, and he screwed up and chose his wife, and left you so messed up that even I felt sorry for you, but you guys want each other so much it's sickening, so just go with it. Everyone deserves a second chance, because it sucks like hell when you realize that you just wrecked the best thing that ever happened to you."

His voice gets kind of bitter towards the end, and we all know why: Izzie. But even if Alex wasn't…himself, we wouldn't really have a response to that, because he deserves what he's got. He cheated on Izzie; made her sad, depressed, and way too Christmas happy; and then she fell in love with someone else, who died and left her so broken that he doesn't stand a chance right now. While it's sad, since Alex isn't all that bad, it's true, and if he feels regret, it's nothing more than can be expected.

But if Derek feels like Alex says he does, does he deserve it? And even if he does deserve it, do I really care?

Eventually, Callie breaks the silence with a comment about something or the other, and we manage to have a fairly normal lunch. Except Derek is constantly in the back of my mind, just waiting until I'm alone so that the thoughts can spring out and overwhelm me again.

I'm stuck doing sutures while Mrs. Collins rests, since there's nothing else I can do for her right now. Just like I predicted, Derek is the only thing I can think about. Of all the times to be right, why does this have to be one of them?

Should I take him back? Should I stay with Finn and try to make things work?

Ugh. Even when he's not here, he's _here_.

You know what, I'm just going to "go with it", for now, and see what he does. It seems like everything I do turns out to be wrong, so he can try and fix things for once.

Hmm, even I am surprised at how mellow I suddenly feel about this. Still, it's a good surprise (which is rare enough), so I guess I won't be too worried.

Of course, my mellow mood lasts about ten seconds. That, in case you're wondering, is the amount of time it took me to get on the elevator with the charts I had to deliver. And no, Derek wasn't the person I was trapped in the elevator with. It wasn't Addison, either.

It was Mark.


	5. In Which the Heroine Does Not Freak Out

**Chapter Five**

**In Which the Heroine Does Not Freak Out (Seriously)**

Mark nods his head to me and grins. Seriously? He's just going to sit there and pretend that he isn't a lying, cheating ex-dirty mistress who got punched in the face the last time he was here?

"Meredith," he says. "Nice to see you again."

Apparently he is.

"Mark," I say, trying to keep my voice even.

_What is he doing here?_ I wonder. Then it hits me – Addison. She must have told him about the divorce.

"So, how's life been treating you?" he asks me, giving me another grin.

I have just learned it is possible to meet someone who is completely shameless.

"More of the same," I answer.

"That's not what I heard," he counters.

I narrow my eyes. And what exactly had he heard? I bet I can guess. "Meredith is a whore." "Meredith stole my husband." "Meredith had Dirty Exam Room Sex with Derek."

"Dirty Exam Room Sex, huh?" Mark asks. "I hadn't heard anything about that."

_Damn._ Okay, Meredith, from now on you will not say what you're thinking out loud.

"You weren't supposed to," I tell him pointedly.

He doesn't seem at all phased. _Shameless ass._

"Besides," he continues, ignoring the dirty looks I'm giving him. "I don't think Derek is in the habit of referring to himself in the third person."

_What?_ Huh? _Derek_?

It is at that exact moment that the elevator doors ping open, and Mark steps out, leaving me gaping after him.

I spend the rest of the elevator ride deep in thought. Actually, I spend the rest of the ride in a state of near-hysteria, but "deep in thought" sounds better.

Derek called Mark. _Derek_ called Mark. Derek called _Mark_. _Derek called Mark_. No matter how many times I try to say it to myself, it doesn't make sense. I think it'd be easier to think "Cristina loves George". Okay, so maybe that's an exaggeration, but the fact that I can actually think of thinking of Cristina and George together proves that I am seriously freaking out right now. Because Cristina and George? Ew.

But back to the source of all the insanity. Why would Derek call Mark? Derek hates Mark. Mark slept with Addison in Derek's bed on his maybe-favorite sheets (Izzie never was clear on whether he liked the flannel or not). Derek definitely wouldn't want Mark here, especially not now.

Except, it turns out, he does.

I don't know why, but somehow it never crosses my mind that Mark lied. He doesn't have any reason to, since we – Well, we might not be friends, but we do both share "Dirty Mistress" status, so I suppose that gives us some sort of twisted bond. We're both the people who the Shepherds left. I guess that makes us the lost sheep, doesn't it?

I snort at that thought. Now I'm even more relieved than usual for the empty elevator. When I snort, it isn't a good thing. I don't have a _Miss Congeniality _problem, or anything, but it isn't exactly my most alluring sound.

Derek thought I was cute when I snort.

And just like that, my good mood is gone. Back to the wallowing.

I step out of the elevator and head over to the nurse's desk. I give Debbie the folder, but before I can go, she calls my name.

"Dr. Grey?" she asks.

Uh oh. I get a very bad feeling. It's not pole-through-your-chest bad, or Code Black bad, but it's plenty bad enough. But I can't follow through on my urge to run away. For one thing, I can't afford to upset the nurses any more then usual (rectals and vomit tend to give me an even worse feeling), and besides that, I don't exactly have the best track record with running away from my problems in this hospital.

So, I only let out a small sigh (as opposed to a large scream), turn back around, and say, "Yes, Debbie?"

She pins me with her special "need to know" look. It's the one she gets when she's on the prowl for some new gossip. Now, she's nice, and a good person, and certainly not a dirty mistress or a whore, but when Debbie thinks there's some good gossip to be had, she's like a vulture. She spots the carnage and she swoops in for the spoils. It's kind of scary.

"I hear Mark Sloane is back," she says oh-so-casually.

She heard Mark Sloane is back? How? He's been in the hospital for, like, six minutes. Does she have some kind of freaky super power? Or a weird neurological disorder like the psychic guy? At the very least, she has to have some weird sensor for anything that could ruin…the miserable train wreck that pretends to be my life.

"Yeah," I nod.

"He's a very attractive man, isn't he?" she asks, still using that faux-casual tone.

"Uh huh," I nod again. I think that's going to be my entire half of this conversation. It's definitely the safest route to go. I mean, how much trouble can you get in for nodding?

"So what does Dr. Shepherd think about this?" she probes.

So much for the nodding plan.

"I wouldn't know," I say, turning away. "You'd have to ask him. I have to go, um, check on my patient."

I hurry down the hall as fast as I can. I can feel her looking after me. Great, now everyone in the hospital is going to know that Mark is back…and that Derek signed the papers.

I start breathing a little faster. They are all going to know. They'll all expect me to go back to him. They will all know that he left Addison for me, especially if he keeps acting the way he has been today. Eventually, someone is going to remember seeing Callie lead me out of the exam room…the same room Derek was in. Someone will remember that horrific scene with Finn and Derek. Someone is going to wonder why I ran away from them and out the door. Someone is going to remember seeing me at Joe's, and wonder why I left the two handsome men who were both offering me a ride.

Someone will figure it out. Someone else will know that I broke up the Shepherds' marriage. Then the whispers are going to start again. _Whore. Slut. Home wrecker. _It'll be just like before. Like high school. Like college. Like it was after Derek picked another woman.

_Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod. _Someone help me. I can't breathe.

_"She slept with an attending."_

_"I bet she knew about his wife all along."_

_"I would've done it. Have you _seen _him?"_

_"No one can have hair that perfect."_

_"I know, and she probably got all the good surgeries because of it."_

I can't stop hearing them. I can't stop hearing the whispers.

_"What a slut."_

_"I bet the Chief will kick her out."_

_"Ellis Grey's daughter? No way. He'll probably just ignore it."_

_"What do you think Shepherd will do?"_

_"We already know that."_

_"The other one. She's probably loving this."_

_"I bet. But she's been alright with Meredith before. I think she's too classy to care."_

_"I think she's too stuck-up to care."_

_"Right. There's no way Meredith Grey can measure up to her."_

_"Well, duh. The woman's, like, the best neonatal surgeon in the country, there's no way Grey's good enough."_

The fog is back. Everything is so far away. Is that me gasping like that? It doesn't feel like it is, but someone sounds like they're hyperventilating. I should get them a paper bag to breathe in, but I won't. I can't. What does it matter?

Derek got me a paper bag. Derek was kind, and sweet, and he was gentle, and he _understood_. He was McDreamy. My McDreamy. Except he wasn't. He never has been. He was Addison's, and now he's no one's, because I can't take this. I can't breathe, and I want to breathe, but I don't, because maybe if I don't, this will all end, and I can finally stop being afraid.

And I am so afraid of so many things. I'm afraid that Izzie will never get better, and that Cristina will finally snap and cry for Burke and his bullet wound and how scared she was. I'm afraid that I'm too scary and damaged to be anything but scary and damaged. I'm afraid that George is still a little bit in love with me, and that I really did break him. I'm afraid that I'm an evil, slutty mistress, and that I broke Addison, too, and that that's why Derek called Mark. I'm afraid that I will never be able to say the words "my McDreamy" and have them be true. I'm afraid that I'm an honest-to-goodness whore who will never, ever get to have happily ever after.

I'm afraid I'll be alone.

The person who was sort of hyperventilating earlier is really hyperventilating now. Someone needs to help her. Why isn't anyone helping her?

People. There are people in the hall now. Vague, blurry, shapes that I know are supposed to be real, live human beings, but I can't get my mind around that right now. They're all coming out of a room, and I think I know that there was a surgery that just finished, but I don't, because I don't know anything except _here_ and _now_ and _fear_ and _pain_.

And then _he_ is _here_. He is the only thing in _here_ and _now_. He is in front of me, and he is saying something that I can't hear, because he's smiling for a second, and his eyes are all crinkly again.

But the smile goes away, and somewhere I feel a sharp, deep pain, but it only lasts a moment, and then there is a new _here_ and _now_.

"_She's my wife."_

He opens his mouth again, but suddenly those are the only words I can hear. Over and over again, until I think they are the only words I'll ever hear.

He keeps looking at me, and he looks worried. He keeps saying something, and I keep hearing him say something else, and _his eyes aren't crinkly anymore. _

And then he grabs my arms, and I can't take it anymore.

"Don't touch me," I try to say, but someone else says it first.

Who is she, anyway? Because that can't be me, I can't sound that desperate, that lost, that _afraid_. It isn't me who sounds like I'm falling apart.

But, _who is she_?

I'm moving again, and there's all this fog, but somehow I'm stumbling into a room, and I still can't freaking breathe.

Footsteps. I hear footsteps. I can't hear anything else but someone (who isn't me) breathing way too hard, and someone else's footsteps.

Then he's in the room with me, only this time he looks worried with just a hint of anger, instead of angry with just a hint of worry, like he did at the prom before the Dirty Exam Room Sex.

I look around to make sure I'm not in an Exam Room to have Sex in, but I can't see anything right. I notice every detail of his eyes, and his hair, and his hands, and his mouth, but I can't tell what's in this room.

The girl is breathing even faster right now, and somehow, I know that she's a girl and not a woman because she doesn't want to be an adult right now. But then I stop trying to notice the room and go back to looking at Derek, and I can't help but think that there are good things about being a woman.

And suddenly, I can't hear it anymore. Derek isn't choosing Addison instead of me. He's saying something else. I can't hear him over the woman's breathing.

Her breathing slows down a little, and now I can hear what he is saying.

"-and I know I screwed up the first time and picked Addison, but I had to try. She was my wife. But even that wasn't enough, because I love you. So would you please just give me a chance to try to fix things and tell me what's wrong?"

_Because I love you._

Now, something else is repeating in my head, but that's okay, because he loves me. He loves me. Me, Meredith Grey, the intern who screwed her boss, and broke George, and has been called a slut/skank/whore way too many times to count. _Me. _

The fog is still here, but it isn't getting in the way of me asking him,

"You love me?"

He freezes, and for one awfulterriblehorrifying second, I can't breathe, and I hear the girl's voice asking "You love me?" in this needy, hopeful, _desperate_ly happy way that seems to linger in the air for eternity.

But then he leans forward and kisses me, and I realize that I kind of hate the fog.


	6. In Which the Heroine Fixes It

**Chapter Six**

**In Which the Heroine Fixes It **

"Excuse me, dears, but you really might want to finish this somewhere private."

I stiffen, and pull away from Derek. He groans a little, but I'm too busy trying not to turn around to nudge him.

"I didn't mind you being in here when this fine young man was being so romantic," the voice – the, kind, amused, definitely _elderly_ voice – continues. "It was even better than one of my television programs. But a rather large crowd has gathered outside this door, and I think you might be better of continuing your activities elsewhere."

Great. Now, instead of just being afraid to turn around and face the patient who I just had a panic attack (and kissed my boyfriend…with tongue. Lots and lots of tongue) in front of, I also have to avoid looking at the crowd of gossip-hungry people who are probably peering in the window right now.

"Maybe we should go back to the kissing," Derek whispers in my ear.

It's a good idea. A very good idea, actually, and one that I really want to follow through on. But we are doctors, and we aren't supposed to be doing this in front of a patient or a bunch of nosy people. Well, we shouldn't be doing this at all, but that went out the window a long time ago.

So, instead of agreeing with his (almost perfect) idea, I say, "We're in a _patient's _room? A room with an actual person in it?"

His grin is amused, teasing, and 100 percent McDreamy.

"You picked it," he says.

"Don't remind me," I mutter. _Fog. Fear._

"We're going to have to talk about that," he murmurs.

That should worry me, or at least make me stop smiling like I've just won the lottery, but it's so hard to think of anything beyond _here _and _now_ when they are filled with things like his hands in my hair and his lips on my neck.

"We're going to have to talk about you inviting Mark to Seattle," I say, before running my hands through his hair.

He pauses and looks up at me, letting one of his hands fall to my waist.

"He came, then?" he asks me.

"Yep. Nice warning you gave me, by the way."

"Well, I would have told you, but you were too busy telling Burke that we had sex last night," he replies.

My eyes widen.

"He _told_ you that?" I gasp.

He smirks at me. I don't know if I want to slap him or kiss him right now.

"Yep," he mimics my earlier response.

Off my look, he elaborates, "Well, not at first, but there are only so many looks a person can take before they snap."

I feel like snorting at that, and then I realize that I can, because I have a McDreamy who likes it if I snort.

So I do.

And he smiles.

"You realize that half the department is probably standing outside this door right now," I point out.

He shrugs.

"And there is also a patient in this room. A patient who will probably be my witness when I tell Cristina that you bothered Burke," I continue.

"She bothers him all the time," he responds.

"But that's because she's Cristina and you're McDreamy," I explain.

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Sure it does," I protest. "She's allowed to bother him because that's how their relationship works, and since they have the best track record of any of us, I don't think we should question that. And you aren't allowed to bother him because you are Dr. McDreamy, and Cristina thinks you're an ass."

"You should make different friends, then," he tells me seriously.

I raise my eyebrows at him. I don't get any chance to respond, though, because someone else beats me to it.

"You wish," Cristina snaps. "And, for the record, I don't think you're an ass, I know you are."

Derek and I finally move apart so we can face Cristina. Behind her, I can see the now-locked door and the curious faces of people peering inside.

Derek raises an eyebrow at her.

"You know, Dr. Yang, that kind of disrespect-," he begins.

"Save it," she says. "In here we aren't doctors, because if we were, you wouldn't be all over Meredith. And since I just stopped about fifty annoying people from getting in here, I am allowed to tell you that you are an ass. If you want to change that, then go ahead, but you can't stand there in front of me and tell me that you haven't been an ass, and a lot of other words that I can't say in front of a patient."

Derek nods. I'm not too concerned with this, though. This is just two people I care about (and who care about me, although Cristina won't publicly admit that) being themselves. What can I do about that?

Yes, I realize that I just sounded sickeningly laid back and happy. But you know what? I deserve to be sickeningly laid back and happy right now, because the last time I felt this good Addison showed up and stomped all over my life in her tasteful and expensive designer heels. So if I want to be scarily happy, I will be.

It wasn't too obvious that that was the argument I'm probably going to end up using on Cristina and Alex, was it?  
"I'll meet you outside at eight," Derek whispers in my ear as we walk out.

My smile gets even wider, but like I said, I deserve to be happy right now.

We push our way through the small crowd that had gathered in front of the door. Everyone suddenly seems quite anxious to get back to work. I really can't imagine why. At least we've given the people in this hospital plenty to talk about. I think I can consider that my good deed for the day.

I mention this to Cristina after Derek leaves to check on his patient (the one whose surgery he was leaving when I ran into him. And no, I did not freak out. I had a brief instance of panic, there's a difference), and she tells me that those kinds of thoughts are why we're friends. Which is touching, if a little (okay, a lot) disturbing.

We've got another three hours left of our shift, so we head down to the pit. Technically, we should be here for another eighteen hours, but the Chief has us doing half-shifts for the rest of the week as punishment for not telling him who cut Denny Duquette's LVAD wire.

It's strange. I've been in this hospital for twelve hours, and so much has happened in that time. So much has happened, that it feels like I should have been here longer. Last night, I was Dr. Shepherd's dirty mistress, and now he's divorced, and I am Dr. McDreamy's potential something. Which is a lot better than being the dirty mistress. Less than twenty-four hours ago, Denny was alive and Izzie was dreaming of a wedding…We were facing the Chief…planning a prom…I was choosing a bottle of tequila as my companion for the night…Callie was peeling me off a barstool…Izzie was still crying…

Call me crazy, but I don't feel any nostalgia for that time.

I'm doing sutures for a while, when Bailey comes down and starts yelling for a trauma team. Which, in the world of surgical interns, means one thing, and one thing only: _good surgery_.

I'm at her side in an instant, with Cristina just behind me.

"This is mine," she says.

"Not a chance," I whisper back. "I was here first."

"You ended my lunch with Burke to talk about your sexcapades, this is so mine." She hisses.

"Would the both of you cut it out," Bailey interrupts crossly. "There'll be plenty of carnage for everyone."

I think it's understandable that we all smiled at that. After all, we're surgeons, it's our job to be excited about cutting people open (and even if it wasn't, we'd still be excited, anyway). And wouldn't you want a doctor who's happy to perform surgery as opposed to one who doesn't like it when they have to cut people open? Besides, we always sew them back up again.

All of this was at the front of my mind when Bailey turned to me with her eyes narrowed and opened her mouth to speak. In fact, I was so prepared for an argument that I interrupted her and blurted it all out.

Behind me, Cristina suddenly develops a coughing fit that sounds a little too much like laughter for my comfort. What happened to "and this is why we're friends"?

Bailey's eyes narrow even further, and suddenly an image of her turning on me with a scalpel flashes into my mind. Which is ridiculous, because she's a surgeon, and she wouldn't do that... Uh oh. She's still looking at me. An eyebrow rises. Okay, maybe I should just back away very slowly.

"I was going to ask you what it is you think you're doing here," she says.

"Huh?" I ask.

Alright, I admit it, I'm afraid of her. There _is_ a reason we call her the Nazi, you know, and I am the person who just made out with an attending in front of a patient. Last time, it was only sex in a car, and even then she made my life hell. Of course, then my life went to hell on its own, so maybe she'll figure she doesn't have to do anything. Karma, right?

"I told you that you wouldn't be going into an OR until I said otherwise. So what the hell do you think you're doing on my trauma team?" she snaps.

"You said I couldn't scrub in on anything until I fixed…it," I say, cringing away from the thought of correcting her. But she hasn't turned around and tackled me (hey, she could take me, she said it herself), so I continue hurriedly. "Well, it's fixed. I fixed it."

Okay, maybe _I _didn't exactly fix it, but one little white lie won't hurt, will it? Because we don't have very long until the ambulance arrives, and I don't want to lose a spot on this surgery because I was too busy trying to explain my love life to Dr. Bailey.

"So I heard," she snorts, turning away from me.

I guess that means I'm in, right? Even if it doesn't, I'm not missing the chance to scrub in on something today, because suddenly, surgery has meaning.

And, you know, we get to cut people open.

They start wheeling in the patient about ten seconds later. Now we're all surrounding him in a sort of organized chaos. Frantic hands are grabbing the gurney from the paramedic as we are told his stats, and the patient is wheeled into an OR in the midst of a frantic crush of people.

He's young, only about 20 or so, and as we leave the ER, I see a frantic young woman rushing in. The odds of her having any connection to this man are slim, but somehow I know that she loves him. It's the expression on her face. She looks like the man she loves has literally got his heart on his sleeve. I look down. He hasn't got his heart on his sleeve yet, but it's definitely out for the world to see.

As the gurney crosses the red line into OR 3, all thoughts leave my mind. It's time to be a surgeon.

"Retract," Bailey tells us.

Cristina and I obligingly pull the retractors farther apart. I'm still surprised we need them at all. The wound in his chest was so big that I was almost afraid his heart would fall out. Of course, we obviously do need them.

Bailey frowns. "Someone go page Dr. Haan."

Dr. Haan? The cardio sub from Mercy West? Why would she need to be here, all Bailey has left to do is close the wound. I look more closely at the heart. That's when I notice it – a small tear in one of the ventricular valves that is already starting to fill with blood.

The rest of the surgery is a blur to me. Everything started happening too quickly after that. Dr. Haan got there just in time, and despite what Cristina says about her being a bitch, she is good. She managed to contain the bleeding and repair the tear. He's alive right now, but one of the other interns is supposed to monitor his vitals overnight.

I don't even know the man's name, but I can't help but hope he'll be alright even more than I usually would have. I think of the worried woman in the ER, and think of Izzie crying on top of Denny's dead body, and I have to hope that he will live, just so one woman can escape the pain of heartbreak.

We clean up and go to the locker room to get dressed. The surgery ran a little long, so I've only got about fifteen minutes before I have to meet Derek outside.

"She dated Burke," Cristina says unexpectedly as I pull my shirt over my head.

"Huh?" I'm still busy wondering why I didn't decide to wear something nice to work. Well, I already know why, but that doesn't stop me from wishing I wore something better than a plain blue shirt.

"Dr. Bitch dated Burke in med school," she says.

She doesn't look at me. She stares straight ahead and spits out the facts like bullets – bullets that would probably be aimed in Dr. Haan's direction. I guess it's time for me to be the supportive friend instead of the other way around. I think I like the change.

"It doesn't matter," I tell her. "They've been over for years, and he picked you."

"She came to visit him," Cristina says stubbornly. "She was there, and they were laughing and being sarcastic with each other. It was sickening."

"Seriously?" I ask, before recovering. "Well, it still doesn't matter. She was just visiting an old…friend, and you have him. You had him even when you pretended you didn't want him. She can't top that."

Now Cristina turns to me. She's giving me that are-you-deficient? look.

"She's an attending," she says slowly. "One of the best cardiothoracic surgeons in the country. Do you get that?"

"Yeah, but she's not you," I try to explain. "Nobody is. And we already know that Burke? He wants you."

Of course, George has to walk over to his locker just in time to catch that.

"I did not want to hear that," he says.

Cristina rolls her eyes, all signs of worry now carefully hidden.

"Grow up, Bambi," she snaps.

I ignore them both and focus on trying to make my hair look okay. Not an easy task when you've just spent three hours sweating and stressing in an OR.

"So I heard about you and Shepherd," George says.

Cristina snorts.

"He was right outside the door with everyone else," she reveals.

"I was not!" he protests. My eyebrows rise. "Okay, I was, but- but only because someone should be able to tell Izzie."

"I could tell Izzie," I deadpan. "And Cristina was there, too, she –,"

"Yeah, no," she said. "I am so not going to give Betty Crocker hospital gossip."  
"Cristina!" George and I say.

"What?" she shrugs. "She obviously doesn't want to have anything to do with this hospital."

We huff, but there isn't a response to that. She's right, of course, but it seems to cold to think of it like that. Izzie's our friend, so we tell her things. That's just the way it's supposed to be, right?

We finish getting dressed in silence, all of us busy thinking about the things we don't want to talk about. _Izzie. Burke. Callie_. I hand George my keys on my way out.

"What are these for?" he asks, confused.

"You and Callie are going to need a way home," I explain. "I'm meeting Derek outside."

"Oh," he says. Then, "And you didn't mention this because…We just had an entire conversation about gossip, and you and Shepherd, you could have said something then."

"Let Callie drive," is the only thing I say to that.

"Okay."

I nod and leave, shifting my tote bag a little. I really need to empty it out. I've been planning to do it for a while, but when people die or have Dirty Exam Room Sex, cleaning a purse out moves down on my To Do list.

I walk outside, and there he is. He's smiling at me, wearing one of those sweaters he likes so much over a t-shirt.

"Hi," he says.

For a second, I can't think of anything to say. I can't believe this is really happening. Yesterday, he was married, and I had no hope for a future with him, and now, here he is. Free. Smiling. Crinkly-eyed. So, I say the only thing that pops into my head.

"Hi."

We walk over to his car, both of us grinning like we can't believe our luck. And, I, at least, really can't.

But I'm open to trying.


End file.
